To the casual observer, it seems as if the Sturgeon Community Hospital has been a construction site forever.
“It’s a mess! There’s absolutely no parking and you can’t figure out where exactly to go in,” said an elderly man, as he and his wife walked single file along the boardwalk that leads to the Emergency Department door. It was blustery and cold, but the man said they were able enough.
“It’s just that my wife has a bad cold and ear ache. The wind bothers her, but we’re OK to walk. Otherwise I’d have dropped her off at the door,” he said.
In fact, as the man soon discovered, the boardwalk makes entry to the correct door of the Sturgeon Hospital nearly foolproof. From the front, there is only one way in and it’s at the end of the walkway.
A blast of hot air greeted the couple as they walked inside the hospital and they were jostled as people went in and out the door, but a volunteer, sitting beside the door, soon answered their queries and directed them to a desk, where their immediate concerns were addressed.
With or without parking, most people coming in the front door seemed to cope and somehow find their way into the hospital, which next year will mark its 20th anniversary. That’s old for hospitals in St. Albert. The first Sturgeon Hospital lasted just 22 years.
The first phase of construction upheaval began when the Health Services Building, completed in 2006, was under construction. This structure is located to the east of the hospital and is the large building you walk around if you park at the back of the hospital. Inside are offices and many health-related community services.
“We have an adult day program there and people are referred to clinics for diabetic education or audiology. There is also a pre-admission clinic there,” said site director Wendy Tanaka Collins.
The redevelopment of the Emergency Department, which started in 2008, was next up in the construction queue. The re-jigged department opened in December 2010 and doubled the site’s capacity to tend to patients on an emergency basis.
The ER is a totally new structure and doctors and nurses say it’s more efficient because it is better organized with all the patient rooms on the outside perimeter and doctors’ stations located inside the circle. It also is better because it includes three emergency bays instead of the one bay that was previously in place.
“The redevelopment has seen treatment space within the emergency department more than double in size from 655 square metres to 1,660 square metres. The ambulance bay also increased significantly in size from 135 square metres to 310 square metres,” said Alberta Health Services spokesman Kerry Williamson.
The development of a new ER was essential because the hospital was seeing more and more patients and didn’t have the capacity required to care for them.
“When this hospital opened in 1992, the volume of patients who came through emergency was 25,000 per year, but we have almost double that number now, with 48,000 patients through emergency per year,” said project manager Cindy MacVicar.
On a tour of the new facility MacVicar and Tanaka Collins point out that the department is busy even on a pre-flu season, weekday afternoon. Despite the increased volume, the patients have more privacy than in the old facility. That increased privacy is in the waiting room, where patients no longer sit side by side, but instead are separated by dividers into small group areas. In the treatment area, glass walls separate the patients so they can talk to their physicians without being overheard.
“With the redesign we were able to address several issues. Privacy was first and foremost. Where we had curtains as dividers before, now the rooms are glassed in. There’s also considerably less noise and patients who need to be isolated can be segregated,” MacVicar said.
The department is also designed for future expansion and has the capacity for 65,000 patient visits. It is linked to the Edmonton metropolitan ambulance dispersal system so patients may come to this hospital from anywhere in the region.
“Now we can pre-identify which facility can best deal with the patients volume-wise and resource-wise,” MacVicar said.
As part of its next overhaul, the Sturgeon Hospital has a big yellow board that stretches across the front of the building like a scar. But hospital authorities are so used to construction, they scarcely see the material and think of it more in terms of a bandaid than a wound. They see the future, and believe the $43.4 million expenditure will make the entire hospital function more efficiently.
“The project will make it easier for patients and visitors to find their way into the building and to locate programs and services,” said Williamson.
Though the hospital’s main entrance is blocked now, the new development that is scheduled for completion next spring will feature many familiar touchstone items.
“The donor brick wall from the old McKenney Avenue hospital was taken down and is in storage, but it will be back up,” Tanaka Collins said.
Similarly, once the front entrance is finished, the fused glass, stained glass art that was designed by Dr. Terry Unger to honour his fellow physician Dr. Jimmy Goh, will be reinstalled.
“We are working with Dr. Unger to find the best place for it, where it will catch the light,” Tanaka Collins promised, adding that other previous fixtures, including the Sturgeon Hospital Auxiliary gift shop and the Sturgeon Hospital Foundation offices will also be back near the front entrance.
Back outside the hospital, cars continue to make futile circle after futile circle as drivers search for a parking spot.
One man at least seems happy.
“You see that guy over there? He gave me his parking ticket. He didn’t need that many hours, but I sure do. There’s some really caring people out there,” he said, hurrying into the hospital.
Tanaka Collins cares about parking, too and knows it is a vital part of how the hospital functions.
“We’ll have two additional public parking areas. They should be ready in the next two or three weeks,” she said.
As for whether the construction pain will ever be over for the new/old Sturgeon Community Hospital, who knows?
The hospital is not a static thing. It’s a living, breathing entity that at its heart is supported, loved and needed by this community. It must continue to grow and change as medical knowledge grows.
“The redevelopment of the Sturgeon Community Hospital is part of a comprehensive, ongoing plan to increase and improve health care infrastructure across the province,” said Williamson, but he could not say what the next construction project might be.
“I don’t know if that’s announced yet. I don’t know what’s been approved.”
